Mike Nadel: Can Skiles take Bulls to next level’?

Scott Skiles is a disciplinarian, a stickler for fundamentals, a straight-shooter who holds his players accountable, a good strategist. He's everything a young NBA team needs in a coach.

Mike Nadel

Scott Skiles is a disciplinarian, a stickler for fundamentals, a straight-shooter who holds his players accountable, a good strategist. He's everything a young NBA team needs in a coach.
When a team matures, when the natural next step is championship contention, when egos swell and when players' minds fixate on contracts and trade rumors, is Skiles still the right coach?
Well, I respect Skiles too much to say the Chicago Bulls should fire him, but it doesn't take a seer to see the inevitable coming.
John Paxson hired Skiles, likes Skiles and shares offensive, defensive and personnel philosophies with Skiles. The general manager believes the coach is the least of the problems for a supposed contender that had lost 10 of its first 12 games before Tuesday night's practically unwatchable 90-78 victory over the equally wretched Atlanta Hawks.
Although Pax probably is right, it doesn't mean Skiles will make it to the end of a contract that runs through the 2008-09 season. After all, Bill Cartwright was Paxson's former teammate and friend, but the GM fired that coach 14 games into their working relationship back in 2003.
When a team with great expectations struggles, the coach takes the heat.
"Fair? Unfair? I don't know," Bulls center Ben Wallace said. "That's just the way it is, the nature of the beast."
It's a familiar scenario. Skiles was canned by the Suns in 2002 because Phoenix players (notably Jason Kidd, an infamous coach-killer) had tuned him out. In the late-1980s, Doug Collins took the Bulls to the brink of greatness only to be replaced by Phil Jackson, who soon started winning titles with the team Collins left behind.
Back then, the Bulls desperately sought a coach who could get Michael Jordan and his supporting cast to play team-oriented, championship-caliber basketball.
Skiles only wishes he had a Jordan-sized "problem."
His Bulls feature an interesting mix of oldies (Wallace, Joe Smith), inexperienced kids (Tyrus Thomas, Thabo Sefolosha, Joakim Noah) and young veterans who should be entering their prime (Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Andres Nocioni).
They are too short. They have too many one-dimensional players. They lack both a low-post offensive presence and a late-game go-to guy. And they are far too dependent on outside shooting, which so far this season has been as reliable as a '58 Edsel.
"I wish I could stand right here right now and nitpick at a couple things," Skiles said before Tuesday's game. "Across the board, when you're 30th in points per game, 30th in field-goal percentage and 30th in 3-point percentage ... we have to play better offense. Until we do that, it's gonna be hard to get wins."
Averaging 86.8 points and shooting 38.6 percent, the Bulls probably would rank 100th offensive if the NBA had 100 teams. They also keep making the same mistakes, a pattern that suggests players tuning out their coach.
"Four out of five possessions, you miss a shot, and the guys are even talking amongst themselves: 'Look, we've got to get to the basket,'" Skiles said. "But then somebody will put the ball on the floor and try to get to the basket and (the opponent) will steal it, the shot will get blocked or we'll throw it into the seats. And that becomes frustrating."
Fans who watched the Bulls make the playoffs for three years running and get to the second round last season have grown increasingly frustrated this fall. There have been boos and Bronx cheers and chants of "Ko-bee! Ko-bee!" (because Paxson couldn't pull off a much-rumored deal for Kobe Bryant).
The Bulls were playing horribly Tuesday even before Hinrich passed up a break-away layup to give the ball to Noah for a thunderous dunk. One problem: Noah wasn't expecting the pass and the Hawks came away with the turnover. As a disbelieving Skiles shook his head, the fans howled.
Eventually, the Bulls hustled their way to a small halftime lead. And by shooting 50 percent and scoring 36 points in the third quarter, they actually resembled a playoff team - and gave fans hope of big things to come.
But how big? The Bulls are what they are.
Even if they make the kind of charge-into-the-postseason run that has characterized the Skiles Era, the Bulls have the look of a team just good enough to get the coach fired.
Mike Nadel (mikenadel@sbcglobal.net) is the Chicago sports columnist for GateHouse News Service. Read his blog, The Baldest Truth, at www.thebaldesttruth.com.

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